Astronomers have captured for the first time a bubble-blowing young Sun-like star, providing a rare glimpse into how our Sun’s neighborhood behaved in its youth.
use NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatoryresearchers observed a young star, HD 61005, about 120 light-years from Earth, with roughly the same mass and temperature as the Sun, and detected a huge bubble of hot gas around it. These wind-blown bubbles, known as “astropheres”, form when a star’s powerful stellar wind collides with surrounding interstellar gas and dust, creating a protective cavity much like the sun’s heliosphere that protects the solar system from galactic cosmic rays. statement From NASA.
This provides the first X-ray evidence of a celestial sphere around a star. our sunastronomers have the clearest view ever of one of these star bubbles outside of us. solar system. Chandra’s sharp X-ray vision allowed astronomers to detect faint radiation around HD 61005, the glowing outline of the astronomical sphere. The location where X-rays are generated is star’s Fast, dense winds collide with the surrounding colder interstellar gas. When fast particles from the stellar wind interact with cold matter in space, they produce the X-ray light that makes the bubbles visible to Chandra.
HD 61005 is about 100 million years old, which is young compared to our Sun’s age of 4.6 billion years. star wind It’s much more intense. Researchers estimate that it blows about three times faster and is about 25 times more dense than winds from the Sun today. This added power helps expand a larger, brighter celestial sphere with hot gas. The surrounding interstellar environment also appears to be about 1000 times denser than our Sun’s current neighborhood, amplifying interactions and increasing the X-ray signal enough for Chandra to detect.
“This new Chandra result on the astronomical spheres of similar stars tells us about the shape of the Sun and how it has changed over billions of years as it evolved and moved through the galaxy,” said lead author Carrie Risse of Johns Hopkins University. statement Sharing Chandra’s observations.
Astronomers nicknamed it HD 61005 “moth” This is because when viewed in the infrared, its wing-shaped debris disks are visible. This is dusty debris from star formation that appears to have been carved by the star’s movement through space. Observations of the astroosphere provide a rare opportunity to learn about the conditions that the early Solar System would have experienced, when the young Sun’s winds were stronger and its interactions with surrounding gas and dust were more dramatic. This study also provides new insights into how stellar winds shape planetary environments and potentially influence the Earth’s environment. world habitability Also around other stars.
“We are influenced by the sun every day, and not only by the light it emits; wind “It radiates into space, where it can affect our satellites and astronauts traveling to the Moon and Mars,” co-author Scott Wolk of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said in a statement. “This image of the astronomical zone around HD 61005 gives us important information about what the solar wind was like early in its evolution.”
The research team’s findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.